What I admire most about Michael Moores polarizing documentary Bowling for Columbine is that is does not attempt to supply easy answersor really any answers at allto the issues it explores. Moore has admitted in interviews that, when he embarked on making a film about American gun culture in the wake of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, he was sure that he would discover that the problem was the sheer number of guns in the United States and the answer was stricter gun control legislation and fewer available firearms. But, then the production took him to Canada, where he discovered a culture in which there are millions of guns in the hands of private citizens and only a fraction of the annual murders we have in the U.S. (and seemingly everyone leaves their front doors unlocked). It was at that point that Moore realized he wasnt just looking at gun culture in America, but rather how gun culture is just one facet of a long and disheartening history of violence at the core of American identity. And that became the films subjectnot guns, but America itself.

Thats a big subject to chew on, and Moore does his best to take as many bites as he can in his uniquely populist, rabble-rousing way. Moore is both a polemicist and an entertainer, a pop historian with more than a few political axes to grind, and his films are at their best when he hits us with hard truths and thought-provoking inquiry while also making us laugh. Bowling for Columbine is filled with moments that make us both chuckle and wince, beginning with the opening segment in which Moore opens an account at a bank that promises a free gun to all new account holders. Its an auspicious beginning that sets a tone of fundamental absurdity, but what makes the film memorable is the way Moore digs beneath the politically riven surface and reminds us that the problems were facing today (and we are still facing them, more than ever, in the decade and a half since the films release) are just new iterations of the same ol, same ol.

The breadth of the subject matter takes Moore to a wide range of locations and interactions with a host of intriguing people, both famous and obscure. He begins, as he often does, in his home state of Michigan, where he secures himself a free rifle with his new checking account and then spends some time in the frigid wilderness with a local militia that is intent on assuring him that theyre not a bunch of anti-government whackos, but rather patriots who are ready for the call of duty. He conducts a lengthy interview in the kitchen of James Nichols, brother of convicted Oklahoma City bombing accomplice Terry Nichols, who grows steadily more unhinged as the interview goes on, at one point taking Moore back to his bedroom to show him the loaded gun he keeps under his pillow, which he (apparently) puts to his head at one point.

As the title suggests, Columbine is a major thread woven throughout the film, not just the high school massacre itself (some of which we see in sickening, grainy black-and-white surveillance footage and hear via previously unheard 911 calls), but the striking oddity almost entirely ignored by the media that the small Denver suburb is home to Lockheed Martin, one of the countrys largest weapons manufacturers. Its really more of an unsettling coincidence than anything, but Moore still uses the proximity of this manufacturer of bombs and missilessome of which were used by the U.S. military on the day of massacreand the wholesale slaughter of 12 high school students and teachers. Later in the film, Moore interviews two Columbine survivors and takes them to the corporate headquarters of K-Mart, who sold the bullets they were shot with. In a striking moment of completely unexpected success, Moores stunt, in which he and the wounded teenagers set up in the lobby of K-Mart headquarters and challenge a procession of spokespeople and managers, results in the retail giane officially announcing the phase-out of handgun ammunition.

The interview that most people remember, though, is the one that Moore conducts with Charlton Heston, former Hollywood star and then president of the National Rifle Association (NRA). Moore, himself an NRA member who grew up shooting guns, minces no words with Heston, particularly in relation to the NRAs holding its annual meeting in Denver just a week after Columbine, a decision that seems thoughtless at best, downright cruel at worst. Heston ends the interview rather abruptly, walking off on Moore as he continues shouting questions at him, thus giving the film its most adept symbolic image of how so many feel in confronting the gun lobby: Asking desperate questions that simply fall on deaf ears.

But, again, Bowling for Columbine is about much more than guns; rather, it is about the prevalent, arguably defining, nature of violence in American culture. Moore makes this abundantly clear in an animated sequence that details the long history of institutional violence throughout American history and how so much of it was and continues to be driven by fear. Fear turns out to be the real tie that binds, linking together the military-industrial complex and the obsession with firearms in a way that is both absurd and sobering. Like all of Moores cinematic polemics, Bowling for Columbine is highly entertaining and just a bit sloppy, moving from segment to segment via loose association that does eventually pull together at the end. Moore is present throughout the film, as he casts himself as the everyday, baseball-hat-wearing American schlub just trying to figure out whats going on, and how you feel about his personality and screen presence will largely determine how well the film works for you. This was only his third documentary feature, following Roger & Me (1989) and The Big One (1997), both of which had established Moores persona and its centrality to his muckraking methodology.

I have never had a problem with Moore, even as I recognize how some of his tendencies can grate, especially against those whose political sensibilities are different from his. Yet, trying to dismiss him as some kind of obnoxious leftwing provocateur is just a means of dodging the strength of the uncomfortable points he makes and the unique position he occupies as a product of working-class America whose allegiances remain rightly connected to the struggling and powerless. Sometimes he gets us to laugh at what were seeing, but just as often he hits us hard with sobering realities that have only become more pertinent and troubling in the ensuing years. Moore was right not to try to reach some grand conclusion because we are, unfortunately, still trying to figure it out.

Bowling for Columbine Criterion Collection Blu-ray

Aspect Ratio

1.85:1

Audio

DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 surround

Subtitles

English

Supplements

Michael Moore Makes a Movie retrospective documentary

Video featurette about Moores return to Colorado in 2002

Video interview with Moore about his 2003 Oscar win

Three film-festival Q&As with Moore

Excerpt from a 2002 episode of The Charlie Rose Show featuring Moore

Corporate Cops, a segment from Moores 2000 television series The Awful Truth II

Trailer

Essay by critic Eric Hynes

Distributor

The Criterion Collection

SRP

?????

Release Date

June 19, 2018

COMMENTS

Criterions Blu-ray presentation of Bowling for Columbine was transferred from a 35mm interpositive. Of course, the film is a collage of different media, ranging from 8mm home movies, to MiniDV, to Super 16mm, to three-quarter-inch tape, so the quality ranges widely. The presentation looks to be an accurate representation of the overall effect of all the different formats, and the original footage shot by Moore looks clean and clear. The original two-channel surround soundtrack was remastered from the 35mm magnetic printmaster, and it sounds very good. The audio in the interviews is clean and solid, while the multi-channel mix benefits the various songs on the soundtrack, including the Beatles Happiness is a Warm Gun and Louis Armstrongs What a Wonderful World. The supplements are fairly wide-ranging and quite inclusive, starting with Michael Moore Makes a Movie, an excellent new 35-minute retrospective documentary featuring interviews with Moore, chief archivist Carl Deal, supervising producer Tia Lessin, and field producer Meghan OHara. There is also a 25-minute program about Moores return to Colorado in 2002, a 13-minute video in which Moore talks about his 2003 Oscar win and his controversial acceptance speech (which is replayed in full), and 12 minutes of excerpts from interviews with Moore at various film festivals. There is a nearly 25-minute excerpt of Moores appearance on a 2002 episode of The Charlie Rose Show, a 7-minute excerpt from Moores 2000 television series The Awful Truth II featuring the full Corporate Cops segment that is briefly seen in the film, and the trailer.